by James R Benn
“What will you do?” I asked.
“When we’ve worn out our welcome, you mean?” Edgar said. “I can probably find a job teaching again. That was the only work I actually enjoyed.”
“What did you teach?” Kaz asked.
“English literature. Elizabethan studies, that sort of thing. I’d rather read and teach Shakespeare than anything else.”
“And your wife, how does she feel about that sort of career?” I asked.
“Are you married, Captain Boyle?” Edgar asked in reply. I shook my head. “Then you wouldn’t understand,” he said.
“ ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind,’ ” Kaz said.
“Ah, Hamlet,” Edgar said, nodding in agreement.
He and Kaz began to talk about plays. David drifted away and Peter yawned. I went to bed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I LAY AWAKE, the brandy sitting dully in my gut. I hadn’t drunk enough of it to forget the foreboding I’d felt when the BBC announcer had reported the raid on the Gestapo headquarters. Or prison. One and the same, in any case.
A lot has happened to me in this war, mostly things I never would have expected. Like falling in love with an Englishwoman, for one. Lady Diana Seaton, to be exact. I often wonder what it would be like to bring an English aristocrat home to meet my Irish family in South Boston. Then I remember Diana is in the Special Operations Executive, and making it to the end of the war might not be in the cards for her. The last time I’d seen her was a few weeks ago, before she was whisked away to an SOE training camp in Scotland. Or so they told me. For all I knew, she could be parachuting into occupied France at this very moment. Maybe even in the hands of the Gestapo, or on the run from them.
Diana felt she had to do her bit, as the English are fond of saying. The only problem with that comes when you fail to realize your bit has had a good long run of luck, and nothing lasts forever. I imagined Diana in the Scottish Highlands, sleeping in a tent and being awakened before dawn by a nasty sergeant major to endure morning calisthenics in the cold rain. That made me feel better, and sleep eventually overcame worry.
IN THE MORNING, Kaz was irritatingly chipper. We went down to breakfast and found Peter Wiley drinking tea and eating toast. As a trained detective, I observed him rubbing his temples and deduced he had a hangover, and that he wasn’t used to drinking to excess. Good for him.
David seemed none the worse for wear, and I wondered if serious amounts of liquor on the ground were frequently deployed against the horror of combat in the air. Or if ample doses of gin helped the Guinea Pig Club face the terror of surgeries. Either way, he had an immunity that I envied on that bright and sunny morning. Meredith and Edgar were absent. When I had finished eating, having managed to do justice to eggs, toast, and heaps of marmalade, I stepped out onto the veranda to try some of that fresh air. Sir Rupert was standing on the stone steps leading down to the expansive lawn, hands stuffed in the pockets of his wool suit coat.
“Captain Boyle,” he said, turning at the sound of my footsteps. “I was about to come and seek you out. Will you take a short walk with me? The air smells wonderful today, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said, falling in beside him and catching the aroma of lavender from the borders on either side of the gravel path. “How are you feeling, Sir Rupert?”
“Much better, Captain. I never know when that blasted fever will lay me low. The doctors say there’s nothing they can do. No cure, but at least most people don’t die of it. Some comfort, eh?”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Sir Rupert?” I knew he didn’t want to talk about breakbone fever.
“You seem like a decent man, Captain Boyle,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. I waited. “And without connections to our family, which is important. You see, there’s something I need to know, but I can’t talk to anyone else about it. Do you understand?”
“An outsider provides perspective,” I said, guessing.
“Yes, exactly. That is what I need. Perspective. You see, ever since Peter Wiley walked into the room yesterday, I’ve been haunted by something I thought I’d never confront again. Do I have your confidence, Captain? Will you keep what I say between us?”
“Kaz—the baron—and I are partners. I don’t keep secrets from my partner. But otherwise, I’ll keep what you tell me in confidence.”
“Very well,” he said as the path descended to the river below. “I leave it up to you, but I ask that you do not repeat this to the baron unless you feel it absolutely necessary, and in that event, you caution him to keep it confidential.” I nodded my agreement, and we strolled, more slowly now, as I waited for him to continue.
“It was during the last war,” he finally said. “I served in France with the army and was wounded. Shrapnel in my legs and back. The doctors left some in. Too close to nerves to remove, they said. I was at home, recuperating. Meredith was a young child and Helen not yet born. Meredith’s birth was difficult, and Louise—my wife—took quite a while to recover. Physically and otherwise.” I could see his face redden, although he kept staring at the ground.
“I understand, sir.”
“Yes, well, the thing of it is, Julia Greenshaw, the maid who went to America. She and I became close.” Even with my cobwebbed mind, I understood. “Once I had recovered, I found work with the Foreign Office in London. Upon my return to Ashcroft, I found that Julia had been sent away, along with Ted Wiley, our groundskeeper. Louise said she knew all about my indiscretion, and had paid Julia to go to America. She claimed Ted had always cared for Julia, and had proposed as soon as he learned she was leaving. I was distraught, ashamed, and had no idea what to do next.”
“Did you try and get in touch with her?” I asked.
“I would have, but no one had an address. So I put her out of my mind, as best I could.”
“Until Peter Wiley walked into your house, wearing that ring,” I said.
“Yes! You can see now why it affected me so. I was shocked to see that ring, in particular.”
“Why?”
“It was Louise’s, of course, being from the Pemberton family.”
“Could Julia have stolen it? Or Ted Wiley?” I asked. “To get back at Louise, I mean, not for the value of it.”
“Oh, I doubt it,” Sir Rupert said. “Julia was not the type of woman to steal, especially not from the house that employed her. No.”
“What is it exactly you want me to do, Sir Rupert?”
He turned and faced me, this time looking straight into my eyes. “I want you to find out if Peter Wiley is my son.”
“How can I do that?” I asked. “Julia and Ted Wiley are both dead. Who would know?”
“I don’t know how, Captain. You’re the investigator. I assume General Eisenhower has you on staff because you know your business. Investigate, ask people. Please,” he added, changing his tone when he seemed to remember he was asking for a favor, not issuing orders.
“Have you thought about asking Peter directly?” I said.
“I have,” he said with a sigh, resuming our walk along the path. “But he might not know. And I would be accusing his mother of an affair, not to mention coming off as a cad myself, which is not far from the truth.”
“What would you have done if she hadn’t left?”
“Good God, that’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times.” He stopped again, looking across Bow Creek at the small stone cottages on the opposite shore. “Julia and I were happy. I know it was wrong, but it wasn’t a cheap, sordid affair, the landowner chasing the maid sort of thing.”
“Did you and she talk about a future together?” Until a moment ago, that would have been none of my business. But if I was going to look into the paternity of Peter Wiley, now it was my business.
“Yes, but it never amounted to anything. Louise was depressed, and I was worried about her. A divorce might have pushed her over the edge. Julia and I did speak of going off together, since divorce would have been such a sca
ndal, but it was only a daydream. We cared about each other, which is why it was such a shock when I learned she’d left. Now I think I understand. Louise gave her a way out. Bearing a bastard child would have ruined her.”
“You think Louise bribed her to leave? And Ted Wiley?”
“Sadly, I think that might have been the case. Perhaps Wiley did have feelings for her, and took his chance at happiness, even knowing who the father was. It might not have been a bad match, at that. Please, Captain Boyle, I have to know. Will you do what you can?”
Sir Rupert looked as down as a grown man could without shedding tears. The past can rip you apart: the missed chances, the lost loves, the joys that never were—things that gleam like silver in comparison with the daily grind of today, the now in which this thickset, grey, middle-aged Rupert Sutcliffe found himself. Youthful daydreams are best forgotten, but his had just walked in on him, and he couldn’t give up hope that something was left of those magical days of secret love. A son.
“Okay,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t regret it. Or fail. “I’ll look into it and let you know if I come up with anything.”
“Thank you, Captain Boyle. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I feel better already knowing you’ve taken it on.” He smiled and clasped my arm for a moment, and then we turned around to walk back to the house.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Is he your son?”
“Look at Peter and Helen next time they are next to each other,” he said. “And tell me if you don’t see the resemblance.” I wondered if Helen had noticed it; that would explain why she’d been so attentive to Peter. Meredith had also given him her full attention at dinner, but perhaps she was simply being kind to an unexpected guest.
“Aren’t you giving Peter a tour of the estate?” I asked. “Perhaps you could ask him what his mother told him about Ashcroft. Give him an opening without letting on what you suspect.”
“I will, but later,” Sir Rupert said. “I have some business to attend to with my solicitor in Dartmouth, and it can’t wait. Please give my apologies to Peter and tell him he can set up his paints anywhere he wishes.”
We parted as he went off to see his lawyer. The scent of lavender now felt cloying and thick as I puzzled over what to do next. I decided it was time for a visit to the kitchen.
It was at the rear of the house, at the end of a wing that abutted vegetable gardens and the greenhouse. It was a long, narrow room with high ceilings and tall windows, along with two large stoves and a wooden table scarred by years of chopping and hot pans.
“Good morning,” I said to the grey-haired woman leaning over the stove, stirring a pot. “You must be Mrs. Dudley. I’m Billy Boyle.”
“Good morning, Captain,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel. “Can I get you anything?” She was in her sixties perhaps, her shoulders stooped from years bent over stoves and dishes, and her body rounded out from the bounty of her kitchen. Her smile was genuine, but I could see she was busy, eager to politely get me out of her hair.
“No, thank you. I wanted to say how much I enjoyed your cooking, Mrs. Dudley. Dinner was great last night.”
“Oh, well, thank you, Captain. I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Mrs. Dudley said. “We had to stretch things at the last minute with Lieutenant Wiley coming, but that’s all in a day’s work.” She relaxed, willing to take the time to be complimented.
“Yes, quite a story, isn’t it? It’s great he had the chance to visit Ashcroft. Were you with Sir Rupert then, when Julia and Tom worked here?”
“Well, it would be more proper to say I was with the Pemberton family, Captain. I began as a very young girl in this very kitchen, as a scullery maid. Worked my way up to kitchen maid and then cook. It was a lively house back then, with footmen and the like. It’s much quieter now, of course.” Again, I got the message that Ashcroft was a Pemberton house, no matter who owned it now.
“But you knew Peter Wiley’s parents?”
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Dudley said. “I did.”
“Has Peter come to talk to you about them?”
“Not yet, no. Do you think he will? It was a good long time ago, I’m not sure I’d remember very much about either. Nice, both of them. Took us all by surprise when they left for America, but it seemed to work out well.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “You haven’t talked with Peter yet.”
“Oh, they’d send a card at Christmas, that sort of thing. Ted had a shop in New York, imagine that! Seems the three of them settled in quite nicely.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Sutcliffe must have been pleased to hear that,” I said helpfully.
“Oh, they never asked after Ted and Julia. And I doubt either of them would have written to their betters. It wouldn’t be done, leastways not back then.”
“I understand, Mrs. Dudley. In case Peter wants to hear about his parents and their time here, is there anyone local who knew them well?”
“No, not that I can think of,” Mrs. Dudley said. “Julia came from North Devon, and I don’t know about Ted.”
“ ’Course you do, Mrs. Dudley,” a young girl said, coming into the room with a bucket of coal for the stove. “My own dad was friends with Ted Wiley.”
“Yes, dear, I’d forgotten about your father. He and Ted did know each other, didn’t they?”
“Yes, Dad and Ted went to school together. They were mates. He’s got some stories I’m sure Peter would enjoy hearing,” Alice said.
“Where could Peter find your father?” I asked.
“He works at the mill, but he’ll have a pint in the evening at the pub in North Cornworthy. Just ask for Michael Withers. I could take Peter and introduce him, I’d be glad to,” Alice said happily. I could tell she’d caught a glimpse of Peter Wiley and found him attractive.
“That’s Lieutenant Wiley to you, girl,” Mrs. Dudley said, her lips set in a scowl. “And right now, we have work to do.”
As did I.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“LADY PEMBERTON, DO you have a moment?” I asked, finding her in the sitting room, opening letters.
“Not as many as I used to, young man, but the next few are yours. Please, sit,” she said, gesturing to a nearby armchair.
“I was thinking it would be nice for Peter to speak with someone who knew his parents. Friends or relatives, I mean. Would you know of anyone?”
“Captain Boyle, although we are an informal household, that does not mean I make it a practice to socialize with staff. It simply isn’t done, not in England. Is it commonplace wherever you come from?”
“That would be Boston, ma’am, and I guess not.”
“Ah, Boston. And there I thought you had a speech impediment. Irish?”
“I am,” I said, trying to contain my anger and stifle a laugh at the same time. “My people are more likely to be working stiffs, and I don’t recall the folks on Beacon Hill ever inviting us over.”
“Beacon Hill? Is that one of the better neighborhoods?”
“They have more money, to be sure. I come from South Boston, and we like it fine there.”
“I suppose that is one of the great differences between Americans and the English,” Great Aunt Sylvia said. “It’s all about money over there, isn’t it?”
“Lady Pemberton, it’s all about money everywhere. It’s simply a matter of how honest you are about it,” I said.
“Point taken,” she said, with the hint of a smile. “Although our currency includes titles, breeding, and property handed down over centuries. Still, you are right. The things we value are what we measure ourselves against.”
“Ted and Julia must have wanted something different,” I said. “Otherwise why go all the way to America?” I watched her, waiting for a split second of hesitation, or for her eyes to flit about the room in search of the right lie to tell me. But there was neither. Instead, she was on me like a hawk sighting a mouse in an open field.
“Indeed. I’ve often wondered that myself, Captain. I do see the appeal of your supposedly classless s
ociety: the chance for any immigrant to work his way up, without regard to the kinds of status we hold so dear.”
“All they did was open a hardware shop,” I said. “Hardly defying society.”
“Yes, but you will find very few sons of servants attending university here,” Great Aunt Sylvia said. “Your egalitarian way in America may be for the best, I must admit. Otherwise the educated class tends to become inbred, if only in its thinking. But why must progress come at the cost of decorum?”
“How do you mean?”
“When I see Americans in Dartmouth or elsewhere, they are invariably loud. They walk about with their hands stuffed in their pockets and lean against public buildings, making all sorts of rude comments and chewing gum with their mouths wide open. And why do Americans insist on pushing their caps back on their heads? I can’t imagine none of you were ever taught how to wear a hat properly. Were you?”
“I was a policeman in Boston. My father would read me the riot act if he ever saw me with my eight pointer at an angle,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “I noticed that you were properly turned out when we first met. Shows you were well brought up—at least as well as can be expected in America.”
“Thank you. As for the rest, I think it’s because most Americans don’t like being in the army, and they’ll be as informal as they can get away with to prove they’re still civilians at heart,” I said, then attempted to return to the conversation I’d started. “Were you here when Julia and Ted worked at Ashcroft?”
“Yes, I was. After my husband died, Louise’s father—the Viscount Pemberton—invited me to come and live here. He and his brother were close, as was the entire family. He wrote me into his will. Whoever gets Ashcroft gets me with it,” she said, and covered her laughter with a wrinkled but dainty hand. “I’m sure Rupert has cursed the man on occasion.”
“Did Sir Rupert inherit it?” I asked.
“Not from the Viscount, no,” she said. “It went to Louise, as the last surviving Pemberton child. When she died in India, Ashcroft went to Sir Rupert. Ashcroft and myself, I should say.”
